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Welcome to another edition of “F**king Mondays!”. In the roundup today:
Screw the poor
While the talk about ending trans rights, cutting food costs and rounding up immigrants won Donald Trump the election, the reality is that Trump has one objective while in office: cutting taxes for the wealthy.
Trump’s campaign was almost entirely financed by billionaires, and now their man is set for the White House, they want a huge return on their investment. The problem is, Trump can’t just explode the deficit like he did last time, so he’ll have to make big cuts elsewhere to offset a huge decline in revenue. Unsurprisingly, those cuts are going to come from decimating programs that help the poorest Americans. Reports the Washington Post:
President-elect Donald Trump’s economic advisers and congressional Republicans have begun preliminary discussions about making significant changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other federal safety net programs to offset the enormous cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts next year.
Among the options under discussion by GOP lawmakers and aides are new work requirements and spending caps for the programs, according to seven people familiar with the talks, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Those conversations have included some economic officials on Trump’s transition team, the people said.
Red states will be disproportionately impacted by these cuts given their already sparse welfare programs, but poor Americans everywhere are going to suffer. Trump has pledged not to make cuts to medicare, but the chances of that are slim. What this means in Republican-speak is that they will try to privatize it and hand profits over to the insurance companies. Medical costs will go up and citizens will be left to foot the bill.
So congratulations if you are a billionaire or millionaire. For everyone else, your medical costs are about to skyrocket and public services are going to disappear.
Bitter truths for Democrats
Democratic political strategist Rachel Bitecofer has an extremely interesting piece out on her newsletter digging into some uncomfortable truths about why Democrats lost the election. Key to her analysis is this chart published in the FT:
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Bitecofer writes:
This one graph tells us exactly why Democrats lost.
First and foremost, it tells us that the Democratic Party has a brand and that brand is “they stand up for marginalized groups.”
Now, that’s a great brand to have if you’re like me, an ideological liberal who cares deeply about the rights of the powerless!!
The issue is just about a quarter of the electorate is liberal and psychologically predisposed to care about marginalized groups.
The rest of the electorate doesn’t get the warm fuzzies we get from marginalized groups, because most humans are hardwired to prefer in groups over out groups and Republican strategists have exploited this expertly.
Bitecofer believes that because Democrats have focused so exclusively on identity politics in recent times, they have ceded working class issues to Republicans. While the Democratic strategy of what she calls “microtargeting identity politics” worked for their multi-racial coalition in 2008, it doesn’t work now because of the huge right wing backlash after Obama. Bitecofer says the emergence of MAGA grievance politics has become the perfect antidote to Democratic coalition building. It created a unifying message that allowed Republicans to capture significant working class support from minority groups who dislike identity politics (trans rights in particular).
Bitecofer argues that unless Democrats change tactics and create broad, unifying themes for the party to coalesce around, they will be doomed to lose again. “The way to represent marginalized groups is by wielding the power to represent them in majorities, not by identity politics in campaigns,” she writes.
Democrats might not like Bitecofer’s analysis, but they are going to have to listen if they want to win elections.
Biden green lights Ukraine missile strikes inside Russia
In a hugely significant development in the Russia-Ukraine war, President Biden has finally authorized Ukraine to use US made long-range missiles to strike inside Russia. From the NYTimes:
The weapons are likely to be initially employed against Russian and North Korean troops in defense of Ukrainian forces in the Kursk region of western Russia, the officials said.
Mr. Biden’s decision is a major change in U.S. policy. The choice has divided his advisers, and his shift comes two months before President-elect Donald J. Trump takes office, having vowed to limit further support for Ukraine.
Allowing the Ukrainians to use the long-range missiles, known as the Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, came in response to Russia’s surprise decision to bring North Korean troops into the fight, officials said.
Russia has deployed around 10,000 North Korean troops near the Kursk region in an effort to push Ukraine out of the territory they took from Russia back in August. The response in Russia has been predictably excessive with prominent politicians promising armageddon. Reports the BBC:
"Departing US president Joe Biden… has taken one of the most provocative, uncalculated decisions of his administration, which risks catastrophic consequences," declared the website of the Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Monday morning.
Russian MP Leonid Slutsky, head of the pro-Kremlin Liberal-Democratic Party, predicted that the decision would "inevitably lead to a serious escalation, threatening serious consequences".
Russian senator Vladimir Dzhabarov called it "an unprecedented step towards World War Three".
Putin has remained quiet thus far, but there will no doubt be an escalation in the coming days. The US will be watching closely to see how far they are willing to go, but given recent history, Russian rhetoric rarely matches their actions.
By authorizing the strikes Biden is giving the Ukrainians a significant boost before he leaves office, most likely to increase their leverage in Trump led negotiations that will heavily favor Putin. If Ukraine can hold onto the territory taken in the Kursk region and inflict serious damage on Russian troops, they can offer it as a bargaining chip for land taken by Russia.
It might be too little to late, but at this point, any boost for Ukraine is a welcome one.
Musk mocks Zelensky
Elon Musk posted this over the weekend in response to Ukrainian President Zelensky saying the US couldn’t force Ukraine to “sit and listen” during negotiations:
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Given Musk has already been on calls with president-elect Trump and Zelensky, this is a frightening sign of what is to come. Musk believes in the alt-conspiracy theory that Ukraine and NATO are to blame for Russia’s invasion, and is now using his vast influence to ensure Ukraine is carved up and handed to Putin on a platter. Part of his strategy is to mock and humiliate Zelensky publicly by using X to create the impression that Zelensky is a freeloading grifter. If he can help shift public opinion on the Ukrainian leader, Trump will be free to cut aid and force Zelensky to take whatever deal Putin offers.
Musk, it should be noted, has been privately talking to Putin for two years, raising serious questions about his impartiality and whether he presents a national security risk. Although not widely reported, Musk could stand to gain a great deal if the US cuts Ukraine off and normalizes relationships with the Kremlin. Musk has a history of business dealings with the Russian state, raising the very real prospect that he is, like Trump, a deeply compromised “asset”.
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